This invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method as well as a program storage medium, and more particularly to an information processing apparatus and method as well as a program storage medium wherein the weather of a real space is reflected on a virtual space.
A pet called electronic pet that is grown in a virtual space produced by a computer or the like is being popularized. Such a pet as just mentioned is applied also to three-dimensional (3D) chatting, and a user of the pet is a branch of the user itself called avatar (an incarnation of a God who appears in the mythology of India) who corresponds to a pet. The avatar moves around a virtual space and, when the avatar meets with the avatar of another user, it can chat with the avatar (user).
The weather in a virtual space for an electronic pet or 3D chatting described above is not specifically set, or else is varied in accordance with a condition set in advance or, for example, after every interval of time such as every day. The virtual space and the real space do not relate to each other in this manner, and conventionally it is impossible to judge the weather of the real space from the weather of the virtual space. Also where the weather is varied after every interval of time, since only limited weathers set in advance are available, there is a subject to be solved that variations are not sufficient.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an information processing apparatus and method as well as a program storage medium wherein the weather of a real space is reflected on the weather of a virtual space so as to provide the virtual space with reality and with abundant variations.
In order to attain the object described above, according to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing method, comprising the steps of signaling a signal for requesting for data regarding a desired district to an external apparatus, receiving data regarding the desired district from the external apparatus, and displaying the received signal or information corresponding to the received signal in a predetermined form.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information processing apparatus, comprising signaling means for signaling a signal for requesting for data regarding a desired district to an external apparatus, reception means for receiving data regarding the desired district from the external apparatus, and display means for displaying the received signal or information corresponding to the received signal in a predetermined form.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, there is provided a program storage medium on which a computer-readable program to be executed by an information processing apparatus is stored, the program comprising the steps of signaling a signal for requesting for data regarding a desired district to an external apparatus, receiving data regarding the desired district from the external apparatus, and displaying the received signal or information corresponding to the received signal in a predetermined form.
In the information processing method and apparatus and the program of the program storage medium, the data regarding the desired district may data regarding the weather of the desired district. The desired form may be a background formed on a virtual space. The received signal may be image data representative of the weather, and the image data representative of the weather may be an image picked up actually by means of an image pickup apparatus. The received signal includes information corresponding to a time at which the signal requesting for the data is issued.
With the information processing method and apparatus and the program of the program storage medium, a signal for requesting for data regarding a desired district is signaled to an external apparatus, and data regarding the desired district such as data regarding the weather of a desired district are received from the external apparatus. Then, the received signal, which may be image data picked up actually by an image pickup apparatus and representative of the weather or information corresponding to the received signal and include information corresponding to the time at which the signal for requesting data is issued, is displayed in a predetermined form such as a background formed on a virtual space. Consequently, the image of the real space can be reflected on the virtual space.